Elizabeth Ayer, the first female graduate of the University of Washington's architecture program, helped fashion the residential architecture of many Seattle neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century. In the early 1920s, after a brief time spent in New York, she returned to Seattle and joined the firm of Ivey & Riley. Edwin J. Ivey provided Ayer with critical support and guidance that would shape her approach to domestic architecture. In 1927, after traveling in Europe for a year, Ayer returned once again to Ivey's firm, which was engaged in a number of commissions within Broadmoor and The Highlands neighborhoods. The designs for houses in these communities were traditional, predominantly Colonial Revival (with features such as double hung sash windows). The Langdon C. Henry residence (1927-1928), located in The Highlands, is a textbook example of the revivalist aesthetics driving domestic architectural design in the 1920s, especially in exclusive neighborhoods.